Boundaries

"A narrative that enables these brilliant actors (Plummer & Farmiga) to shine and lures viewers in on their wild ride full of mayhem, shady pot-dealings, and inspiring moments of self-discovery all along the beautiful Pacific coast." - Film Threat

"Let us now praise Christopher Plummer, the 88-year-old actor, Oscar winner and professional savior of nearly scuttled prestige projects. He's one of the many reasons to see Shana Feste’s semiautobiographical story about a screwy single mom (Vera Farmiga) who’s transporting her elderly father from the Pacific Northwest to Southern California. The old con man and his grown offspring have a storied history – she won’t take his calls and fills the hole he left in her heart by adopting stray animals by the dozens. “I was gonna say ‘missed opportunities,'” Farmiga’s character Laura says to her therapist when asked about her big daddy issue, “but sure, [call it] ‘abandonment.'”

"Except he’s just been kicked out of his retirement home for growing a massive amount of pot in the facility’s greenhouse, which means he has to relocate to Los Angeles and live with Laura’s kooky sister (Kristen Schaal, kooky). He also says he’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and this may be the last chance for them to heal ancient wounds. Laura, her misfit teen son (A Monster Calls‘ Lewis MacDougall) and Pops pile in to his old beater of a car, with the idea of getting this trip over as quickly as possible. Dad has other plans. Namely, he wants to unload a lot of his 'product' for profit as they head down the coast, which requires a few creative detours. He’s also not above recruiting his grandson for the cause, right under his daughter’s nose.

"No one should short-shrift Farmiga, an actor so consistently good that we tend to take her talents for granted. She does wonders with this character’s rough edges, and her scenes with her onscreen dad, her prickly-dour son and her ex-husband, played with top-shelf douchebag smarm by Bobby Cannavale, don’t skimp on the sting. But it’s the man behind the crusty old coot at the center of Boundaries that gives this film its gas. Plummer knows how to goose a simple declaration like 'This is the good stuff' for maximum joie de vivre. He knows how to sell an over-the-line line like 'Even pedophiles know to steer clear of your bad vibes' regarding his paranoid grandson without losing the audience. He knows how to make you feel that borderline stock encounters with an old forger (Christopher Lloyd) and a veteran record producer (Peter Fonda, who maybe you didn’t hear has been in the news recently) are deeper that they actually are. He can make 'I gotta change my diaper, I’ll see you chickenshits tonight' feel like a mantra. We did warn you there would be adult-incontinence jokes." - Rolling Stone